Lift a stone
by MTraverAndujar
Summary: A story about the meeting point.
1. Her words

**Disclaimer: Bill and Laura are not mine. I just write about them to honor them.**

It is the cold that kicks him out every night. Never before dusk, though. Not until the last ray of sun fades away behind the profile of the mountains, flooding the valley with long shadows that descend from the peaks, slide across the plains and climb to the top of the hill to die at his feet.

Bill turns his attention to reality again. He looks down to the ground, to the tips of his boots. Their worn leather makes a contrast with the lush green of the grass under them. He feels the cold and humid touch of earth under his palms, seeping into his bones and threatening to invade his whole body from that single point of contact. It is the same earth that wraps up her body. Tonight, like all the other nights before this one, he wonders if Laura is okay. He turns to the simple burial mound.

She is way better than him, of that he is sure.

She is not. At all. Not anymore, not anywhere, he reminds himself.

It is a mystery how new life is created, how new beings show up in the world where there was nothing before. It is as much of a mystery how life ceases to exist. Where there used to be something, someone, suddenly there is only silence and emptiness. It is just impossible that she no longer exists. Maybe she dwells some other place now… A too familiar anguish creeps to his throat as Bill realizes it: as devastating as it is to miss her this much, it is the notion of Laura's non-existence that he cannot wrap his brain around. The worst part is not that she is not with him: what is impossible to accept is that she does not exist, period. The notion of his own life without Laura, as terrible as it is, is better than the notion of a life, any life, without her in it. The fact that she no longer exists holds a deep contradiction: she was life incarnated; she was life's greatest expression, its best proof. She was energy, strength, determination. She was humor, intelligence, courage. She was warmth, selflessness, affection. Especially with him, he muses; and he is not sure if that certitude makes him feel better or even worse. He got to meet the true Laura: that Laura that she kept carefully protected inside herself, bottled up with all her old grievances, her wishes, her desires. The Laura she eventually allowed small glimpses of, only to those who were able to make her feel safe. She gave him that Laura, completely, body and soul: that was the best Laura, hence nobody has lost more than him.

If anyone ever seemed capable of cheating death over and over again until the end of time, it was her.

Tonight, as in all the previous nights and in so many moments every day, Bill wonders how much longer he will be able to carry on without her. The tightness in his chest only gets worse week after week. The idea of dying does not disturb him. He is in no hurry to leave this world, this planet that took them so much effort and sacrifices to get to. He can almost hear her recriminating him for considering the option of just letting himself die. Therefore, he will not do it. But he is not going to do more than just enough to hold on to this life that, without her, is no longer a life but just painful subsistence.

Earth was a gift for everyone else: he got his own gift during the journey. It eases his pain somewhat to realize that he was always fully aware of it: every day, every moment, every second with Laura by his side, he already knew what he had, what it meant. Long before Laura was gone, even long before she confessed her love for him putting in words what he could read in her eyes, Bill already knew without a question that she was the most valuable thing that had ever happened to him. He knew full well how lucky he was for having the chance to know her, to have her around, to share her time and her intimacy. To love her. He had not wasted a single second; even when they were still keeping their distance as a concession to their duties, he had not remained oblivious. He had been fully aware of how valuable each moment was.

Bill brushes away his tears with the back of his hand and gets off the ground with a soft grunt. His legs are stiff; he takes two wobbly steps and stays there, standing by the pile of stones. He looks at it for a few seconds, transfixed. Then he squats down. His knees creak loudly. He

places both of his hands on the stones. They are still warm from the last rays of sun. He leans over carefully, as if it were Laura's body that he is touching; as if he were afraid of adding his own weight on top of the weight she is already bearing. He shuts his eyes with force, holds back a sob.

Then he opens his eyes. He must leave now, or he never will.

The first night, after burying her, he could not bring himself to leave. He wept like a little kid, his compact torso and his arms spread over the tomb. Eventually, he fell asleep. When he opened his eyes at dawn he realized that, as impossible as it seemed, he had fallen asleep while he still cried. His muscles, exhausted from the previous day's effort and ice-cold after so many hours out in the open, simply refused to respond for a few long minutes. Even if freezing to death lying over Laura's burial mound only one day after losing her sounded really tempting, his self-preservation instincts had kicked in and he had been scared.

'I love you, Laura.' He brokenly whispers. 'See you tomorrow.'

Only the wind answers him. Sometimes, Bill feels that it is next to Laura's tomb, where she (what remains of her) rests, that her absence becomes more noticeable to him. When he is somewhere else it becomes slightly easier for him to ignore the terrifying reality of her non-existence. He can even talk to her, imagine her, fantasize with the moment her face will show up at the entrance of the raptor, those eyes so full of light looking for him, her smile widening when she sees him; he can see her walking towards him, impatient to find out what he is doing, to show him something new she just discovered. He can imagine himself wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her tight, sinking his fingers in her hair. Why not? After all, in his imagination he can do whatever he pleases: therefore, it can as well be her hair. He can hear her hum with pleasure, her face buried against his shoulder.

Her grave, however, is a sentence that admits no appeal.

Bill leans over and kisses a stone. Then he stands up. The raptor is just a few feet tens away. He sleeps in the ship for now, and he will keep doing so for as long as he has to, while he works on the cabin. So far, he has barely managed to set up a rudimentary foundation.

Inside that raptor, Laura talked to him, smiled at him, breathed for the last time.

It was inside that raptor that he slid his wedding band on her finger, sealing their mutual love for all eternity. A symbol that neither needed but that he had felt compelled to perform in that moment of overwhelming grief, when he had just lost her forever. With that gesture he had sent a warning to the universe that was taking her away from him: we belong to each other and no one else. Wherever she is, wherever I am, until the end of time.

On the back of the ship, Bill reviews his food supply. Over the past few weeks it has kept shrinking at a slow but regular pace. Bill is determined to make it last as much as he can, to postpone as much as possible the moment when he will be forced to leave and search for the others to get more food. He knows that they will worry; that they will insist on sharing with him even the scarcest goods they have; that they will try to convince him to accept a help he does not need.

He does not want company. He does not want anything from anyone. His will is just strong enough to keep him from letting himself die. He does not need them to make him explain.

Finishing the leftovers of the can he left open hours ago does not take him more than a few minutes. He stays standing as he eats and throws the can into a makeshift trash bin when he is done. Then he walks over to the rack, determined to crash on it, clothes on and all. The bottle of ambrosia, patient and reliable and half-empty, awaits him on the floor, next to the head of the rack. Exactly where he left it last night. He has not touched it in twenty-four hours and even now he simply does not feel its pull. It is strange. Now that Laura is gone for good, his need to drown in alcohol has subsided somehow. Feeling powerless when she was still alive, seeing her fading away, slipping through his fingers, feeling the inevitable end circling them, chasing them, had been more unbearable in a way than trying to resist and endure the grief now that there is nothing left to do.

He is halfway to the rack when he stops. A sudden thought assaults him and he stays standing in the middle of the narrow space. He hesitates for a few seconds, then he turns around and walks over to a corner. He hesitates again before leaning over, reaching out and lifting a bag from the floor. It is the bag that contains Laura's scarce belongings. In all this time, he has never been able, not just to review them, but to cast a single glance in the direction of that bag. He has stored it away as if it contained a threat that he could neutralize just by ignoring it. Now, tonight, he suddenly wants to face it. He needs to see her stuff once more: the clothes she wore, the objects he saw in her hands so often. Maybe even some things they shared. Determined, he lifts the bag and takes it to the rack. He takes off his boots, swings his legs up and leans back. He reaches out for the bag which he has momentarily left on the floor and lays it down on his lap.

His fingers wrap around the zipper and stay still for a moment. He does not have any doubts but he allows himself one more second to calm down, to give his breathing and his heartbeat a chance to find a gentler pace. Once the bag is open, there will be no going back. Bill takes a deep breath, exhales and pulls the zipper.

The scent invades his nostrils. It is a familiar scent that bathes him in memories, sensations. A distinct fragrance that blocks his throat and floods his eyes in a split second. It is Laura's scent: the one he always perceived around her; maybe her shampoo, or an echo of her perfume, the one she so sparsely used in an attempt to make it last as long she could. More than anything, it is the scent of her skin. Her own personal scent. This experience is the closest he has felt to the woman he loves since she passed away.

Bill sobs. His shoulders shake in gentle spasms as he slides a trembling hand inside the bag. His fingertips explore the content. Almost everything he touches is cloth, garments. Her blouses, shirts, and suits. Her underwear. Bill laces his fingers around a garment and pulls it out through the slit: it is a black bra, the only one she had that was slightly more special. According to her own words, the only decent bra she owned. He had guessed its dark shadow under her shirts in different moments and places, even long before she allowed him to see it directly on her skin, to touch it, to take it off her. Bill's fingers play with the garment for a few seconds before placing it back inside the bag. With his eyes closed, the images that the object conjures up make his pain physical, tangible. Bill puts up no resistance, lets the weight of those memories invade him. He is not afraid to feel it. That which he feared the most has already happened.

He has already lost her.

He slides his hand inside the bag again. This time, his knuckles brush against a hard object. Its touch feels like worn leather. _Searider Falcon_, he immediately guesses, only to realize a second later that it is not possible: it is him who has the book. It rests very close, also inside the raptor, with its unrevealed ending, its unfinished story, so much like theirs. Among his belongings, not among hers. He has no intention to open it for now, but it is his most treasured possession.

Curious, Bill pulls the object out of the bag and holds it up before his eyes. It is a book, indeed. However, there is no title engraved on its dark-brown cover. Not without a vague apprehension, Bill picks a block of pages at random and skims through them, bending them slightly and letting them fall as they escape his thumb.

He freezes: the book is handwritten. It contains pages and more pages of a handwriting Bill could recognize among all the handwritings of the universe. It is a diary; _her_ diary. The realization startles him. His hand closes the book with a sharp move and a thud. He is not sure he should read this.

He does not know if he wants to.

Bill tilts his head backwards and closes his eyes. He should never have opened the bag. He should have left it where it was instead of giving in to his curiosity, to his need to see her stuff, to feel those objects in his hands again; a vague, ridiculous echo of what having her felt like. If he had not opened it, he would not be facing this dilemma now. Right there, inside that book, there are her words, her reflections, her feelings. Maybe even the answers to some of the questions he never dared to ask, sometimes because he did not want to hurt her, other times because he feared her reply.

This book represents his only chance to listen to her once more, to know her a little better, to get closer to her now that she is so far away. Bill knows that, reading her, he is going to hear her voice. It is going to be her soft voice telling him everything, reading to him each and every word written in that diary.

Bill opens his eyes and stares at the cover.

He should not do it. The fact that she is dead gives him no right to violate her privacy. He will not do it. He will put this diary back in the bag and forget it exists.

_Don't be silly, Bill. Open it._

Bill does not move. He recognizes the inflection of the voice that delivers such a sweet order. He knows it is a mirage, a figment of his imagination. He does not even think he is losing his mind. This has happened before. It is his own mind talking to him with her words, in the tone he knows she would use. It is his ears reproducing the sound he misses most; his own mind desperately trying to make up for his loss with fond memories and warm sensations.

_Come on. There is nothing in there that you can't know. As a matter of fact there are things I want you to know. __I want you to read it._

Bill sighs. If things had gone the other way around, if he had left before her, he would have liked to imagine her reading him, sharing his intimacy. For him it would not have felt as a violation of his secrets but as a new way to share with her, to give her something more even after leaving.

With his heart threatening to burst in his chest, Bill slides a finger among the pages and opens the diary.


	2. Laura's journey

Bill breathes in and exhales deeply before lowering his eyes to the words. His fingertips caress the pages, test the roughness of the sheets, feeling how Laura's hand traced all those lines on that page that was blank once. How she left her mark on the paper like she did in the universe: discrete but unmistakable. Her lines are straight; her handwriting, plain and steady. Direct. With little ornament but elegant and straightforward.

Just like her.

The first words jump off the page and force him to read.

_In the middle of the mud, the dirt and the cold of this godsforsaken planet I must admit that I feel surprisingly well. Some nights I wake up with a startle, soaked in my own sweat, thinking that it all was just a dream, that I'm still sick. Then I feel my breast with my fingers searching for the lump, but it's not there. It's just gone. I don't know if it's gone for good or how long I have now. I'm not even sure I would have approved of that miracle cure had I been still conscious. But I'm grateful anyway. I accept life for what it is, I don't think any further. I'm healthy, I have the school and the kids, a little space all to myself in the camp, and a very uncertain peace, but peace nonetheless. I try to enjoy all of it._

_Some nights I wrap a blanket around my shoulders, I get out of the tent and look up to the sky, trying to spot Galactica's lights. I wonder how Bill is doing up there._

Bill smiles tenderly. He imagines her healthy, strong, determined. In charge of the school, with _her_ kids, like she used to call them. Once again, Bill wonders how much Laura regretted not being a mother, or why she never had children: if it was her who decided not to have any, or if life refused to give it to her. If it was just the circumstances or if there was anyone, anything specific to blame for that hole in her life, in her heart. He wonders if she did feel a hole, or if she was okay with it.

There is so much they did not have the chance to explore. With limited time, they attended to the essentials.

It is so easy for him to imagine her alone in her tent, waking up terrified in the middle of the night, feeling her breast, fearing what she might find. Pain clutches at his heart: how badly he wishes he could have been with her, holding her in those moments of sheer fragility! Rocking her until she relaxed again, until she fell back asleep in his arms. If only she had given him access to all her depth of emotion, to her vulnerability! If only they had made up their minds and started to share everything, not just the weight of their responsibilities, much earlier!

He imagines her close to her tent, out in the dark, wrapped in a thick sweater and a blanket like she describes, looking up and thinking about him. It is both heartbreaking and so very sweet.

'I used to look down too, Laura' he chokes out.

He did look down to the surface of the planet often. He wondered when he would be able to consider the danger was past them at last, pass the responsibility over to someone else and settle. With her, if she would have him. Considering how she had looked at him that night, how she had cuddled against him and let him hold her in his arms as they stargazed together, lying on those sandbags, he had been hopeful she would say yes.

That had been before all their hopes were blown up; before the sole idea of Laura trapped on that mud rock, threatened, maybe a prisoner of the cylons, tormented him relentlessly, day and night, for months.

On purpose, he skips a few pages looking for a paragraph from that period. He forces himself to read.

_Bill, I still believe in you. I keep believing you will come for us. I'm sure of it, I know you'd never leave us behind. What I don't know is if I will still be alive when you come. If I'll ever see you again. I need to have faith that I will, I need to keep hoping it will happen. Otherwise, I'd give up. That thought is the only thing keeping me going. Also, there is something important I need to tell you. Something I should have told you long ago._

_Other times I think you'd better not come. You'd better leave us here and stay safe with the few who are up there with you. I can't even consider the possibility of you dying. It doesn't make any sense that you risk everything for us. It would be suicide. It would be madness._

Bill closes his eyes with force. He leaves a finger among the pages and lets everything come: all the grief, the regrets, the fear, the despair.

He will never get a chance to ask her what that important message was that she needed to tell him. Maybe she told him later. Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she forgot.

Maybe, Bill muses, in the middle of that hell Laura had felt the need to reveal her feelings to him. Our desires have a way to become stubbornly real when they are beyond our reach. He cannot be sure. He will never know. However, if his own memories and the words he has just read are anything to go by, it is not so ridiculous to think that she felt for him already, and that the prospect of never seeing him again had made her regret not having confessed her feelings to him when she still had the chance.

Just like him, she had avoided words, let his behavior do the talking instead.

He holds his breath for a few seconds. Then he releases all the air in his lungs and opens his eyes. He skips another block of pages forward.

_Bill is distant. I am, too. So many decisions keep us apart. My hiding Hera, the nebula. Baltar's trial, which will take place soon. All our responsibilities. Neither he nor I are going to pull back, or falter, or let anything in the way of what we think our duties are. It's all of this._

_And sometimes, it still seems to me it's none of this. Sometimes I think it's just us. I can't expect from him something I think he should not give me. Something I'm not willing to give him myself. But we were closer before New Caprica. Even when we discussed fleet issues, when we argued over any of the hundreds of crises we faced on a daily basis, we were partners; friends, even. This now feels as if, despite the feelings we let each other catch a glimpse of on New Caprica (or maybe because of them), Bill is keeping me at arm's length, opening a safety distance between us. And I understand. I'm doing the same thing myself. Still… I'm not sure I should. I'm not sure I want to, I don't even know if it's right._

He knows so, so well what Laura is talking about. Maybe, the only thing that surprises him is finding it so openly expressed in her diary. He would have bet that Laura never trusted anyone or anything, not even a piece of paper, maybe not even herself, with the confession that the distance between them disturbed her. That she questioned it somehow.

There is no way to know if she wrote all this before or after his wedding anniversary that year. He senses it was before and it was probably those reflections that fostered the conversation they had that day. Among all the days she had available, Laura had to choose his wedding anniversary to approach him, to test the waters. It was clearly her who took the initiative, who made the first move, who tried to ask him around.

Gods, he was so stupid. How he backtracked as soon as she asked him if he would have settled. He remembers the sparkle in her eyes and the flush on her cheeks when he confessed that, in his mind, he still saw her wearing that red dress, glowing, full of life. When he told her he loved seeing her laugh so openly, so radiant and relaxed. Despite all this, one second later he simply could not bring himself to take one more step. Too many doubts. None about his own feelings; not really about hers, either. It was… something else. Something that never should have mattered. They were so hellbent on fulfilling their duties that they were making the most terrible mistake. Only a few weeks later she learned her cancer had returned. Had it not been for that, maybe they would have never taken the next step. Or maybe they would have, but the sole idea that they might not torments him even now. He never should have hesitated. Not even today, after these past few months enjoying and sharing with her the greatest love a man can dream of, not even today can he forgive himself for waiting so much.

Laura herself did not make things any smoother. She did not let her walls down easily. Not even during those months when she lived with him under the plausible excuse of having better access to her treatments. She was risking being the target of rumors and criticism, she was tacitly accepting their mutual feelings and making concessions to them, yet she never acknowledged them. Bill knows it was not personal, it had nothing to do with him: she was struggling, at war with herself and dealing with the constant presence of the disease that made everything so much harder. There was so much she wanted to arrange before the hour was upon her!

Yet it was Laura who finally confessed her love for him before he did. Anyway, by then she must have been more that certain about his feelings: he had been showing them to her for a long time. It was also her who ultimately pushed them to leave their responsibilities aside for a few hours and seal with their bodies the intimacy of their souls. There was no going back after that night. She moved with him, stayed with him until the end.

Maybe she is still with him. Maybe she is here now.

Waking up from his reverie, Bill shakes his head, berating himself for the weakness implicit in that last thought. He turns his attention to the diary and jumps a few more pages ahead.

_… the rationing. Even the algae are rationed now. I keep wondering how much longer we will resist. There are disease outbreaks everywhere, because it is simply impossible that our bodies can stay healthy with this sorry excuse of a diet. Sometimes it looks like our worst enemy is no longer the cylons: it is our own misery, our hopelessness, starvation, malnutrition. It has been months since the last baby was born in the fleet, and so many people have died meanwhile._

_I wonder what sense all this makes. This agony, this journey, this fight for survival out of pure instinct when maybe very soon there will be nothing left of the human species anyway. No one. We will be forever extinct._

_But then again, when I think about all this I realize it still means something to me. They, all of them give me purpose. This is what I must do, and I will keep doing it until my very last breath, until I die and they have to flush my body out of an airlock._

Bill smiles wistfully. This is his Laura: resolute, protective, and a fighter.

She was also cold and distant during that time. Ruthless, almost. Her sole purpose was to do all that had to be done to preserve the fate of humanity. At all costs. Even at the price of her own humanity. And she certainly got close to sacrificing her own soul. Not because she was becoming evil but because she got too estranged from her own emotions, from her own needs. That merciless oblivion of herself ultimately left her without emotional guidance. The decisions she had to made came close to hijacking her soul.

They did not, however. She did not let it happen. When it came to it, he would not have allowed it, either. He could not afford losing her.

Now, suddenly, Bill feels grateful that he had the chance to bury her. He cannot even grasp the measure of his own grief and his heartbreak had he had to airlock her body, just like Laura coldly and precisely describes. Lost in the universe, a tiny little dot floating away without any coordinates in some place he would never return to. Disintegrated.

His home is wherever she is. On Earth, at least he knows where to find her.

_I needed this. Earth is a nuclear wasteland. My mission is a farce. My body will betray me sooner rather than later, forcing me to leave behind everyone I love._

_After the attack to the Colonies I never thought I'd be able to rebuild anything remotely similar to a life while we drifted across the universe. I did not expect anything anyway, I was also dying back then. It seems to be my natural state, to be dying without actually dying._

_But this time it will happen. This time is different, everything is lost and there will be no miracles for me, either._

_I know, because this time I care. Because this time it hurts, this time I would like to stay if I could. But I know it won't be possible, so I try to make peace with my fate and I rebel against it at the same time: I want to live a little, I want something for myself before it is too late._

_It is Bill. He changed everything for me. He is the reason I want to stay as much as the reason I can accept that I will be gone soon. If I can do this, it's because of him. Because I found him. Because I have him by my side. Because I love him like I do. It's because I have all this I thought lost forever (all this that maybe I never had before) that I can find peace in the prospect of leaving._

_It is a paradox: I can come to terms with it thanks to him, but he can't accept it. I can read it in his somber looks, in all the questions he does not ask. I know he reproaches me that I am at peace with my death. Sometimes he pretends, behaves as if everything was as usual and I think he does it to avoid hurting me, but other times I know it is the truth that he is avoiding. It was hard to make him understand that we deserve this, that we must own our love before I leave. I know he wanted it as much as I did, but I guess that postponing it was his way to fool himself: 'There's no hurry, we still have time.' A way of trick himself into not facing the truth. I don't blame him: it's not me who will be left alone this time. I just… I would just like to be able to help him accept it. To help him find peace._

_I know he doesn't understand why I gave up on my treatments. I don't know how to explain to him that those treatments keep me from living. And not living is a luxury I can't afford. Not when I have him. If this is the end, it's going to happen on my own terms, and my terms are with him. All the way to the end. This barren wasteland that Earth turned out to be has made me realize that there is nothing, absolutely nothing besides this, here, now. Besides me and him, with him. Us. The only thing we'll ever be able to call ours is what we have already._

_I love him. I love him with everything I am. I love him like I never loved anyone before and I need him to know. I need to feel him close, I have a physical need for him. He loves me and needs me the same way. I sense it in his glance, in how delicately he searches for my touch when we are alone, when it's just us. And I'm not going to give it up. We couldn't miss this chance: in my current state there might be no more chances. It still feels like a miracle to me to have found my home at the end of the world, to have found him when there was nothing left for me. To have found this love that is different from anything I knew from my previous life._

_I needed your hands on my skin, Bill. Those big, rough hands of yours that I feel so soft. I needed your caresses, I needed to plunge in that tender gaze that is my undoing; I don't think you know the effect it has on me. I needed to hear you whisper my name while your fingers uncover all my secrets. I needed to feel you inside me, to feel your strength and your will in my gut, be one with you, be yours and part of you. I needed to shudder in your embrace, to give myself to you completely, to show you how deeply I belong to you. I, who refused the idea of belonging to anyone, who felt that nothing belonged to me anymore… It turns out I have found myself wholly by letting myself become yours. Giving myself to you physically makes me feel still alive, makes me know I will live forever. I'll be with you forever._

_And I needed to kiss you, to touch you, to caress you like I have been longing to do it for years, not having to hold back due to our responsibilities, not having to consider how inconvenient it would be. I needed to let my body express what I feel for you._

_I don't know if this helps you like it helps me. I can see in your eyes how much you love me, how much you need me. I know that, for you, letting our feelings loose also means realizing that you will soon lose me. You think that, if I weren't sick, maybe I wouldn't be living with you yet, maybe we would not have given ourselves to each other, body and soul. Maybe we wouldn't have done this yet if we had more time. Maybe you are right. But then, maybe we should be grateful to my sickness for triggering it. If that is the case, I most certainly am._

_You, however… having taken this step makes it all so much harder for you. You will have more to miss._

_Or more memories to keep your soul warm. Wouldn't it be much worse to lose me without having tried to live this fully, all that we have, all that we are together and for one another? Wouldn't the missed chances hurt much worse? I prefer to leave having known your taste, your scent, your touch._

_I am writing all this on your desk, under the dim light of your quarters that comforts me so much, waiting for your shift to end, for you to come back home. Surrounded by your things. I feel safe here. And as I write I'm hoping you will read these words someday. I hope this diary will find your hands one day, because everything that is mine is yours too, and that you have the strength to read it. If I ever failed to show you what I feel, I hope these words make up for all my neglects, wipe away all your doubts and the sorrows I caused you. That they bring you peace. You deserve no less. It's what I wish you. I would like to stay with you forever, to be able to tell you every day, to show you every day. To be allowed to answer all your questions with my voice and my body. But I know I will not be granted this wish._


	3. If death is not the end

It is too much.

It is just too much, and Bill buries his contorted face in his hands. His cheeks have been flooded with tears already for several paragraphs. He drops the diary which falls next to him, on the rack, and closes with a gentle thud. It stays there, silent, Laura's written confession safe in its belly.

Everything vanishes. The world, the universe, the raptor, Earth. Everything. His shoulders shake, his back shakes. His legs shake, spread over the sheets. His whole body trembles, first in silence, then with a soft moan that grows in intensity and finally becomes a howl of raw pain. He feels two forces in stark fight within himself: one is the warmth raining over his soul, the peace of seeing Laura's love for him expressed so clearly by Laura herself. The gratitude of knowing all of his feelings for her so utterly reciprocated. She understood him so well; her sharp, brilliant perception reading him like an open book, just like he always suspected she could. The other force is anguish, grief, unbearable heartbreak. This is what they had: thus, this is what they lost. Bill curses the gods he does not believe in because it was far too little time. It is not fair that Laura had to die.

His struggle only makes both forces stronger: gratitude makes his pain bigger, and his sorrow only highlights the value of what they had. The tide rises and rises until he cannot take it anymore, and he suffocates, and it reaches a point where pain could just split him open. The raptor contains his scream like a pressure cooker barely letting a thin line of steam outside, just as Bill's chest barely contains the explosion of his sorrow.

He has no idea how much time has passed when his meltdown starts to subside. He drops his hands and opens his eyes. He barely remembers where he is. His sobs become gentler and he brushes the tears off his face with the back of his hand. He lets out a ragged exhale and lowers his gaze towards the diary, lying next to him, silently respecting the pain that its secrets have just inflicted upon him. Bill lays a hand on its cover; he leaves both his gaze and his hand right there while his mind wanders across the memories and the images that the reading has elicited.

He sees her sitting at his desk, in his quarters, the diary open under her hands, drawing all those words on the empty page. She is wearing a plain t-shirt and leggings, maybe also her hoodie. She has neither her scarf nor her wig on: her head is bare and bald and leans towards the paper.

She is so skinny. It was always so hard to realize how thin Laura's frame was when you had her in front of you, her energy and her presence so strong that her fragility went unnoticed. It is somehow easier to picture it now that she lives in his memory only.

She is engrossed, focused; from his corner he can see the sparkle in her eyes. He can tell she is emotional but she appears calm, pulled together. So very her. She bites her lip, stops writing. She leaves the pen on the open diary. She looks up at him, and smiles.

Maybe it was that evening, when she finally convinced him that they should give in to their deep need of much-deserved private time and space. That they should act on their feelings before it was too late. Bill did it for her, but that does not mean he wanted it any less. It just never seemed that things could be otherwise. Laura had understood that he might never make the decision. She knew him too well. And instead of feeling hurt or upset, she simply had taken the initiative. After all, she was the president. Like so many other times before, she had laid the picture before his eyes as if there was just one alternative. Also like so many other times before, he only had had to accept.

Her skin, so soft under his palms. Her smile spreading to her eyes; those two emeralds lighting him up, inviting him, welcoming him with a smirk, bathing him in warmth and tenderness. And then hiding as her lids fell shut and her lips parted when he started to stroke her more intently, precisely, intensely. Her slender fingers clinging to him, her back arching with a long sigh, like a reed that would never quite break.

She was never more beautiful than lying there, giving herself to him, trusting him, open and vulnerable, letting him take her wherever he wanted. Letting him explore her, learn her. Her strength, her resistance, her determination, her will, all the forces that were Laura focused on becoming his, making him hers through all she made him feel; more hers than he ever was.

Bill squints as he recalls her touch, her taste, the gentle hums in the back of her throat as he gently guided her to the peak of her pleasure. The way she whispered his name, almost like a prayer. Never before had his own name sounded more beautiful to Bill than said by Laura as he entered her, carefully, mindfully, much more worried about hurting her than she was about being hurt. Her sweet way of resisting and giving in, of wanting more and not being able to take it any longer. He had felt a peace unknown to himself as they made their way together towards ecstasy.

He remembers holding her later; wrapping his arms around her from behind and pulling her to him until it hurt. Burying his nose in the crook of her neck, so exposed under her bald head, and kissing her right there, and feeling her shiver and giggle quietly. Stroking her side, winding an arm around her waist. Breathing in her scent. Sliding an 'I love you' in her ear just a second before she fell asleep. Feeling her tug at his hand to draw him even closer, his chest against her back, and knowing then that Laura was not yet asleep. That she had heard him.

Feeling, rather than seeing, her smile.

And then, watching her as she drifted off to sleep. Falling asleep himself a little later, despite desperately trying not to, because he does not want to waste a single second sleeping while Laura is still there, while she is still safe in his arms. He will sleep, for all eternity if he is granted his true wish, once she is gone.

Laura's fragility, her vulnerability, her need of him, her desires as a woman, even her old wounds from her former life, all of them are as present in those paragraphs as her determination, her will, her strength, her brilliance, or her sense of humor. What an extraordinary compendium of herself she has left him as a gift.

'Thank you', he whispers, looking down to the diary.

As if she could hear him from inside the book; as if she would manifest herself invoked by the sounds of his voice, by his calling.

He strokes the cover with his fingertips, not quite sure if he wants to open it again yet. Maybe it is better to check its content a little bit each day. After all, he does not know what other emotional landscapes he is going to see himself thrust in, guided by Laura's hand, next time he opens it. He is not sure he is ready for much more today, he is not sure he wants to face anything else right now. Maybe he should just try to sleep now that he is so exhausted, now that those last paragraphs have filled him with warmth; a strange and elusive feeling that will most likely be gone tomorrow, leaving him with a raw soul once again.

He cannot do it, though. He knows it is over, he knows he is hopeless when he sees something appearing from between the pages of the diary. It looks like the yellowish corner of an envelope that would be hidden inside it and has slid between the pages when he dropped the diary. Bill looks at it, mesmerized, and the envelope tempts him, barely peeking out from the edge of the book, inviting him to pull at it.

'Gods', he mutters.

He does not give in immediately. He allows himself a few moments to pull together the sad remains of his armor. He is going to need them, battered as they are, if that envelope is a letter for him. When he finally lifts the diary off the mattress and places it on his knees again, it falls open on the page where the envelope was hidden. Bill takes it and turns it around to read the name of the intended recipient. As soon as he does, he recognizes the shape of his own name in her handwriting. She is calling him with that soft but determined voice of hers; that smooth sound that delivers orders in a way that makes it impossible for you to do anything but comply.

That voice that no longer exists, lost to him and to the universe.

_'Bill.'_

_No_, he replies. Not yet. I need a minute here. He knows that if he asks her, she is going to give him that. Laura would never deny him anything his heart truly needed. He imagines her wrapping her arms around his back, shuffling her fingers in his hair, which is longer now than she ever saw it. He is going to have to give himself a haircut. Bill makes a mental note of it. If he could, he would keep everything, the raptor, his clothes, the landscape, his own hair, absolutely everything just like she saw them for the last time. If he could, he would freeze time and space in the exact point where she ceased to exist. He would force the world to mirror what has happened to his own life. It is obscene that everything goes on as if nothing has happened.

He closes his eyes and breathes in all the air he can hold. Then he lets it all out, casts a glance at the open book and pushes the envelope aside, leaving it on the mattress for now. He knows he will not be able to sleep until he opens that letter. Despite this, or maybe for that very reason, he is going to postpone it a few more moments. Carefully, almost fearfully, he slides his gaze over the words written on the diary.

_Among all the things I thought could happen to me in the middle of this trip to nowhere, this is without a doubt the one I least expected. I never imagined that this would happen. My strange destiny seems to be to lead humanity to an uncertain salvation that I will never get to see, if it exists at all. My goal is to not die before fulfilling my mission, but it looks like not even the Gods or the scriptures can stop my death from happening now._

_I'm running out of time. Despite all the prophecies that turned out to be true so far, if we don't find Earth really soon this journey will have to go on without me. Bill will be left to keep going on his own. I trust him, but I would have liked to share the journey with him._

_Bill. When I think about him, the way we have made seems extraordinary to me. It seems impossible that we are where we are now with each other, when I think back to how it all started, with so much mistrust, judgment, resentment. So much loss and so many wounds he and I had to handle while we adjusted to this destiny neither of us counted on seeing thrust upon our shoulders at this point in our lives._

_When he came to see me two days ago he was no longer the Commander: it was a friend visiting me. I could read it in his eyes; something in the way he looked at me left me breathless. He offered me his hand and when I put mine on it a warm energy entered my body. Then I looked at him and I saw a tear sliding down his nose. But he was not ashamed that I could see it: he didn't look away, he kept smiling at me, kept holding my hand, showing me his affection. My eyes welled up and I'm sure he noticed. But I didn't care, either. Suddenly I had a very clear realization: back then, on Caprica, I had nothing. Nothing I lost in the attacks really had any value. However, up here, in the middle of this desperate race and with my death just a few days away, I've found a friend, someone who cares, who will remember me and miss me when I'm not around anymore. It's extraordinary. And I'm grateful for it. For him._

_And still, I didn't expect this. How could I? It was me who intended to surprise him, to offer him a gift whose meaning I hoped he would understand. My trust and my affection expressed through those two tiny metal pins whose very shape I ignored just a few days ago. I hoped he would be able to read my intentions, now that he is as aware as I am of the very little time I have left._

_But he gave me a much better gift, a very unexpected one. It caught me by surprise, off-guard. I was so focused on keeping my balance and my self-control. I can still feel his fingers under my chin, his soft touch startling me a little, his hand pulling my face towards him. It took my breath away when I saw his eyes so close, plunging in mine, while his arm around my waist held me up all the time. One second before I was falling apart, now I was awake, rooted in the moment. I pulled the remains of my armor into a smile, he came closer… Gods, I close my eyes now and I can still feel his lips on mine, and how his touch suddenly started a tingle, a shiver in my gut, the echo of something I had taken for granted I'd never feel again. Something I don't even think about anymore; it has been so long since the last time I felt it that I had forgotten._

_But Bill kisses me, in the belly of this grey ship, lost in the universe, a few days before my death, and I feel it again. And I wonder if… I am the president of what is left of humanity, and I know I'm dying and I can't afford this luxury, and especially, I can't do this to him when I'm going to be gone so soon. But maybe, in the middle of this maelstrom, something has happened inside me without me even noticing, busy as I was looking somewhere else, looking outside of me, trying to fix everything else, everything that had nothing to do with me. Trying to live up to what I had to do._

_I'm not sure what I'm feeling. Or maybe I am, but I don't have the time to explore it, to wallow in it. The time to understand the message that Bill has sent me with that kiss. It is too late for everything, and even if it wasn't, even if he really felt something for me, even if (Gods, I can't believe I'm actually writing this) I feel something for him too, it simply can't be. Not with our responsibilities. Not with our destiny._

_Thus, I'm left with nothing. But in the middle of this nothingness, Bill has given me something that warms up my soul. Something that gives me peace now that I'm about to leave._

Bill smiles. Sad as they are, these are memories he can handle. He can, because they are sweet and tender and, especially, because they are from the beginning. Because, that time around, Laura survived. _Yes, Laura. I already felt for you back then, your impending death only made it more evident. It was not premeditated, I just followed an impulse when I saw you so fragile yet so dignified, so beautiful in the middle of so much pain and destruction. I wanted you to know how I felt before you left. And then, you didn't leave. We got you back. I got you back._

For the first time since Laura died, Bill feels grateful. His sorrow for having lost her too soon vanishes momentarily when he realizes all the things they were so close to not living had Baltar's science not miraculously brought her back in the last second. His mind gets flooded with broken pencils, giggle fits, a red dress, a stargazing night, late night phone calls… The intimacy they shared in his quarters, so many unexpressed feelings floating around them; the reading hours, the arguments, the fights. Her 'I love you', the first of a not very long series: Laura used words moderately, as if they were valuable supplies that, like water, food or tylium, could get used up if carelessly handled. It only made not just her words when she spoke, but her gestures when they replaced them, all the more valuable.

He could read both anyway.

Her arms wrapping around him, her hand leaning on his, comforting him; her way to put down a mutiny with just the force of her voice. Her way to fall apart when she saw him again after being made believe he had been killed and was lost to her forever. Her scent on his sheets; smiling upon hearing the water running in the shower, knowing it is her in there. Their shared breakfasts and dinners. Her body welcoming him, wrapped around him, both challenging and pliant. The touch of her hair, her breasts, her throat; her long, gorgeous legs. The flush on her cheeks, the light in her eyes when she looked up at him while he was inside her. Her flavor. Her breathing when she was sleeping. Her caresses, her fingers tracing random patterns on his chest while they exchanged confidences, lying on his rack, well into the night. Her final confession: her home was with him, whenever he was. Her way to give herself up to him, to trust him, to surrender to his care, with dignity but no longer with pride. Not with him, not anymore.

He would have missed everything.

This fragile, newly found feeling of peace gives him the courage he needs to open the letter. Now, suddenly, he does not understand how mere minutes before it scared him so much. It is Laura after all, the Laura he knows and loves, who is going to speak to him through that letter. And if he fears her sharpness even with Laura dead, he also knows Laura would never hurt him. Especially when she knew he would only read that letter once she was gone.

He half-detaches, half-tears the flap of the envelope, pulls out a folded sheet and holds it in front of him. Despite all his determination, he still needs to lay his hands on his knees to stop them from shaking.

_Bill,_

_When you're reading this I'll be gone already. I'm leaving you this letter in case you decide not to read the diary. I know you: you can very well keep respecting my privacy after I die, even if that's not what I would like. My diary is my experiences, my reflections, my emotions, and my love for you. Everything is in it, and everything is yours. More yours than mine now. I'd love for you to read it, whenever you feel strong enough to do it. I'm in it. It will keep you company. In the meantime, I'm making sure you received my message, so I have written this letter because I know you won't leave a letter from me to you unopened._

_I would have loved nothing more than staying with you, Bill. But I needed to make peace with my death. And I was able to, precisely because you were by my side. It is cruel for you, the way things have happened, but I want you to know that everything I had been searching for my entire life, without even realizing I was searching for it, I found it in you. This independent woman, so obnoxious sometimes, always stubborn, cold and distant in so many moments (I'm sorry, Bill, I'm so sorry, I hope you can forgive me), this woman that took so long to surrender and accept her feelings for you, Bill, this woman has no doubts now. No regrets. I hope you don't have any, either, but just in case I'll say it clearly just one more time: I love you. I love you with everything I am. I love you like I've never loved anyone. And I feel you love me the same way. How could I not be at peace?_

_When I say I love you, Bill, I mean now, in the exact moment you are reading these lines. I know you don't believe there is anything after death. I'm not sure myself; I don't even know if I ever truly believed there would be something. But you taught me that the most wonderful things can still happen even when you have given up expecting anything. If there is one single chance, just one, if there is an afterlife, whatever it is, you can be sure I'll be with you. There is no force in the universe strong enough to keep me away from you. And you know what happens to those who try to interfere with my plans… If death is not the end, Bill, I'll be with you. Looking after you, holding you, keeping you company. Even if you don't feel me. Or maybe you will; I really hope you will._

_I love you,_

_Laura._

He stares at the paper, reading over and over again Laura's last words to him, the ones that condense in a few lines the essence of what she wants him to know. He is not aware of the change when he brushes away his tears with the back of his hand, when his own ragged breathing registers with him again. He barely notices it when he leans back on the rack, folds the paper, puts it back inside the envelope, and slides it under his jacket, close to his heart. He does not notice anything as his lids get heavier and heavier until they fall shut over his dark blue oceans, almost waterless after all the crying he has done in the last hours. He remains oblivious when he lies down on his side and, almost asleep already, grabs the bag with Laura's belongings with one hand, lifts it off the mattress and lays it on the floor beside him. Not the diary: he holds the diary tight to his chest.

Bill falls asleep.


	4. Lift a stone

_The first rays of sun caress his face while he walks up the slope like he does every morning. He feels the humidity from the ground under his soles with every step, on every footprint he leaves behind. It is just a few feet away, a curve, a crook; just slightly over two minutes what it takes him to reach her every day, to arrive to the place where he buried her. That place that is, among all the places in the universe, the one where her absence is more deafening._

_But he comes back every day. In the morning, and then again before sunset. He needs that time with her, with himself. He needs that time to make sure he keeps remembering even the most insignificant details of everything Laura was. To keep her alive in his memory. He needs to give in to the illusion that she can still hear him when he talks to her._

_A gentle breeze energizes him; it almost feels as if the universe were urging him. He does not want to walk faster than usual, he does not need to hurry. There is something in the air, though: a subtle presence that might harbor different intentions, as if there was a plan devised for him today._

_The path takes a turn around a group of gaunt trees. The cairn can be seen from there. Bill knows, and he looks up, trying to make out its soft outline of stone under the still tenuous light of the day that is just breaking._

_He stops cold. There is someone up there. someone is sitting on the mound, on her grave. His first impulse is to run and lift the intruder in the air, whoever it is, for daring to use Laura's resting place, the last home he built for her, as a vulgar seat._

_Not the last, he corrects himself: the last will be the cabin, which already is in progress._

_He does not do it, however. He stays put, still, squints to sharpen his sight, because there is something too familiar in that quiet, feminine form that faces the horizon, her back turned to him. His gut and his heart guess it, know it even before the sunlight hits her hair making it glow like dark fire. It is then that realization sinks in, breaking through the fog in his mind. He does not understand, but he knows nonetheless: he just must believe what he sees. Either it is true, or he is going insane. His heart drums franticly inside his chest. If this is madness, he does not care. Rather, he prays it lasts. Forever, if possible._

_His mouth goes dry, his throat thick. He is grateful he does not know what to do or what to say because he could not speak or move anyway._

_She remains still, her back upright, watching the sunrise, oblivious to the sound of his footsteps uphill, walking from the raptor behind her. Her long, slender hands rest on her lap; the soft breeze plays with her hair like he always wanted and never could. When he was finally allowed to sink his fingers in her hair, it was no longer her hair. He was too late for that. For a few more things, too; but he does not want to think about that now. Not when she is right there, in front of him, just a few feet away. And he does not want to speak, does not dare to ask, to take one more step and maybe tread on a stick or a fallen leave that will creak under his weight: she might vanish at the first sound he makes. She might vanish if he blinks._

_She might turn around and it might not be her._

_It is his feet that move; those two rebels who do not take orders, that cannot stay still when she is just right there; when they can reach her in just a few more steps. Now he is closer, and he can see her much better, and it is her, it is her: the curve of her jaw, the line of her nose, her soft cheeks; Bill was so afraid to not recognize her traits, to come closer only to find out it is someone else; his mind playing tricks on him, disturbing him, presenting him with a cruel mirage._

_If his feet do not take orders, why should his tongue?_

_'__Laura.'_

_It is a sigh, a whisper, a question, a yearning, a prayer. The wind carries his name to her ears, floating in the quiet and the silence of dawn._

_He sees her tense up, then she turns around. The universe holds its breath._

_As soon as their eyes meet, fear dissipates in Bill's heart: as long as they keep looking at each other, no force in the universe will be able to take her away from him. That morning, in the raptor, he got distracted, let his guard down: if he had kept looking at her instead of trying to distract her with his nonsense about gardening and the landscape, death would have never been able to catch her._

_Laura looks at him, looks at him and smiles. She sits up, then stands up, never taking her eyes off him. Yes, that is the sparkle in her eyes, that light he was sure of having lost forever, that he had trusted to the dwindling exactitude of his memory. He sees her hesitate, just like him moments before, but it does not matter anymore. He is awake now, he can move again, albeit in one direction only: the one that takes him to her through the shortest distance, the straightest line. He leaves the twisting path and walks across the grass with sure, ample strides; and he walks faster the closer he comes, and when she finally reacts she only needs to take a couple of steps because he is right there already, outstretching his arms, smiling at her among the tears._

_Laura enters the circle of his arms and falls against his chest. A warm tide spreads across his entire body from that center. This was it. This was what he missed, what he needed to be able to breathe again. He holds her flush against him, and she is his again, she belongs to and with him more than she ever belonged to death. Laura's arms wrap around his neck, she buries her face against his shoulder. She is standing on the tip of her toes, leaning all her weight on him desperately, impossibly close. And he pulls her even closer, and challenges the universe to take her away now, just try if you have the guts, just try and you'll see. Her slender, fragile form; holding her, protecting her in his arms seems so much easier than just keeping her around. He breathes in her scent to make sure it is her._

_'__I thought you'd never come.'_

_Her voice is a choked sob._

_He draws back a little, just enough to see her face without opening his arms, without letting her go: she might just fly away if he releases her; a sudden gust of wind might snatch her away from him._

_He plunges in those green pools. Shocked, not quite understanding, he explains:_

_'__I came, Laura. I kept coming every day. Several times every day. But you weren't here. You weren't here.'_

_He closes his arms around her again, holds her to him with all the strength that stems from the memory of his sorrow, from the bitterness of her absence. Laura cuddles further into him._

_'__I was here.' She whispers in his ear. 'I was here, but you couldn't see me. I couldn't see you, either.'_

_Bill holds her tighter one more second, then pulls back a little, brushing his cheek against hers. He kisses her temple, her forehead, her salty eyelids. He looks at her again._

_'__I don't understand'. He admits._

_Laura bites her lower lip, she blinks a couple of times. Bill knows what that means: she is thinking, reflecting. He keeps watching, fascinated, because that expression is so her that it just does not seem possible. He makes a mental note of it, just in case she leaves again, just in case she is taken away from him once more._

_Laura's hands rest on his waist, and her serene features suddenly light up, and that is how he knows she has just figured it out. Like always before, he just has to wait for her to share it with him. She always does._

_'__Have you read the diary?'_

_Bill nods._

_'__Some parts. I only found it last night.'_

_'__And the letter?'_

_'__Yes.'_

_'__Hmmm.'_

_She moves her head on the affirmative, with a satisfied, almost triumphant gesture._

_'__That's it.'_

_'__What do you mean?'_

_Bill lifts his hand to her cheek. He is ready for her answer, but the truth is he does not really care, immersed as he is in the profound happiness of having her here, safe in his arms, her skin under his fingertips. Of the explanation she is about to give him, he only cares about the part that will tell him what he did exactly to bring her back. Just in case he has to do it again._

_'__I was here, Bill. And you came, but you… weren't here. Not really. You just had to… to look at things a little differently. You had to connect with me again. You had to… feel me alive.'_

_Bill kisses her forehead but he is not convinced, and he can read in her eyes that she has realized that much._

_'__Even so, Laura. This is a dream. There is no afterlife.'_

_He knows. He has the certainty of the man who keeps dreaming but knows he is asleep and knows that everything will vanish as soon as he crosses the fog between sleep and wakefulness. She tilts her head to the side and looks back at him tenderly, like one would a kid._

_'__Maybe this is a dream, but that shouldn't make you jump to conclusions about the afterlife.'_

_Bill gives her a small smile and holds her tight again. She lets him, and wraps her arms around him, and the force with which she clings to him startles him. It mirrors his own need, his own despair. He keeps holding her close, in part because there is nothing he wants more, in part to stop her from seeing his face as he asks:_

_'__But I need this, Laura. I need to see you, hear you. I need to feel you, breathe you in, touch you, caress you. Dreaming of you is not enough. It is not enough.'_

_His throat is thick with unshed tears._

_'__Me too...'_

_Her admission, calm but broken, makes his chest tight. One hand on her waist, the other in her hair (at last, at last his fingers caressing those wonderful locks), he pulls her back a little._

_'__You, Laura?'_

_You too feel this longing, this pain, this loneliness? This is not right. I don't like this. You should be at peace. Just one of us suffering is more than enough. It should be just me, not you. Not anymore._

_'__Of course, what did you think?' she replies with a small voice._

_And she smiles at him. Her cheeks are moist._

_Instead of answering, Bill kisses her on the lips. He comes closer slowly but intently. A second before making contact, both close their eyes. Bill parts Laura's lips carefully, and feels the tinge of salt on the corners of her mouth and brushes it away gently with the tip of his tongue, wiping away the traces of that pain that Laura should no longer be feeling. And she welcomes him in her mouth, welcomes him and participates, and dances with him, and slides her long fingers on the nape of his neck, and suddenly it is no longer soft fingertips but nails scratching his skin when he leaves her mouth and his lips move to her earlobe leaving a wet trace behind, and from there they descend along her neck to her collarbone, and she gasps and now, more than ever, Bill is sure it is her. He buries his face in that welcoming space and clings to her waist. He feels Laura's fingers shuffling his hair and murmurs:_

_'__I'm sorry.'_

_She pulls his face up. When he looks at her, she is smiling through her tears, she smiles all the time as if she could not stop, as if there was no other alternative._

_As if there was no time to lose._

_Laura cups Bill's face, her palms holding him affectionately, and he wonders if she can guess she really is holding him up entirely. Bill mirrors her smile, turns his face to the side and kisses her palm. The palm of the hand that wears the ring. He feels the cold metal against his cheek and smiles and kisses it, he kisses that band that once was his, and for the first time, he imagines her surprise upon finding it on her finger._

_'__You didn't need this. My heart was yours already.'_

_She says it tenderly, plainly, like just stating a fact._

_'__And mine yours. But I wanted you to take it. Like you took everything else.'_

_Her expression shifts abruptly and Bill knows exactly what her next words will be._

_'__I have an idea.'_

_Some time ago, in their former life, those three words said by her sometimes scared him. Trusting her did not stop his heart from skipping a beat sometimes when he was about to hear one of her suggestions, always original, always daring._

_Laura extracts her body from his embrace and he barely holds back a painful grimace. She tugs at his hand and Bill lets her guide him. Wherever it is, he does not care. He is not going to ask as long as she does not break contact._

_She walks them closer to her grave. Then, she takes off the golden band and looks at him. Laura's eyes soften; she is reading his hurt and confusion. She stands on her toes, slides a hand behind his neck and kisses him on the lips._

_'__It's not yours, and it's not mine either, Bill. It's ours. It is our symbol. It belongs in here, it must stay here. This is the meeting point. The limit between our worlds, the place where you talk to me, where I wait for you. When you come by my side to stay, we will get back here together to retrieve it.'_

_Laura leans over, lifts a stone, puts the ring in the small space and sets the stone back in place again._

_Bill understands. And, as always, if that is what she wants, he is okay with it._

_He wraps his arms around her waist from behind, lays his palms on her belly, kisses her hair, feels her lean back against him with a deep, happy sigh. He tries not to think about how much longer this will last._

_'__I love you.'_

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He does not remember it until he is already by the grave.

He has all but run all the way up, stumbling, hoping for his painful breathlessness to numb the much more terrible sorrow of his soul upon waking up and seeing she was no longer there. That, just like he guessed, it all had been only a dream.

But right now, panting and sweaty under a sun already high on the sky (the sweetness of the dream has made him sleep in for the first time since she left), as his breathing and his heartbeat find a gentler pace, he squats down by Laura's grave, lays both hands on it and, suddenly, he remembers.

He stares down at the stones, trying to remember which one it was. He hesitates for a few seconds before reaching out towards one small, round form, its color a little lighter than the others. He holds his breath, curses himself for his delusion, grabs the stone and lifts it in one sharp move.

He is not going to look inside. There is nothing inside.

Then again, if there is nothing in that small space, he should not be afraid to look.

He looks.

Something sparkles in the tiny space. Like to dissipate his doubts, the sun reveals its golden color as soon as he leans over to catch a better glimpse. Shaken, he leans over a little more. He outstretches his hand. Even before his fingertips touch it, he knows what it is. He pulls it out.

Bill watches it on the palm of his hand. He holds his breath along with his tears. After a while, he carefully places it back again on the small space and covers it with the stone.

The meeting point.

He lifts his eyes to the sky.

He cries.


End file.
